Organic Molecules Found 400 Light Years From Earth

[Minimalist]

Sure he can.  Lots of gods invented by humanity have been ignored into non-existence.  Yhwh and his bastard kid are merely next on the list.

I wonder. Can you be ignored out of existence? I will try and we'll see.

You can ignore me but I won't ignore you.  Idiocy must be opposed.

[Amarok]

I wonder. Can you be ignored out of existence? I will try and we'll see.

By all means cower and flee . But it won't make your ass kicking any less through .

[rjh4 is back]

Trying to unpack the disagreement here, and steer it onto a better course.....

Are we trying to gauge the relative "ease" of life arising out of organic chemistry?  It's certainly easier than life arising out of inorganic chemistry, and for the reasons that brian suggested.  Carbon is the stuff of life precisely because of how many bonds it's capable of making, just for starters.  It has little competition on that count.  Without that ability the complex organic compounds we see in our kind of life wouldn't be possible.  

Silicon, maybe, but it wouldn't be as easy, and it just gets more difficult from there.  Ultimately though, I don;t know that you're both using the same metrics or even talking about the same thing.  It seems as though you're wondering whether or not abiogenesis is rare or common, rj - but I'm not sure that it matters either way in the context of brians response or the subject of contention...as we would only be discussing a rare natural event, or a common one.  Both are natural.  Life is organic chemistry either way - and even if god played in the dirt, he played with organic compounds, without which, life as we know it would not have been possible.  Does it actually matter what stirred the soup, fundamentally?

As for me...I was just trying to get Brian to either admit that his statement: "Close proximity of individual atoms that by themselves are not a living thing, but because they bond like magnets exchanging electrons, that makes it very easy to go from non life to life." is unproven or to explain the mechanisms by which life comes from non-life easily.

I even tried to see if others agreed with him but got silence. I was not terribly surprised by Brian's reluctance. I am, however, surprised that the atheists let Brian's statement go without comment.

Oh, well. Such is life.

[The Grand Nudger]

Thing is, it's not unproven or even remotely controversial.  Organic chemistry facilitates life because of the number and complexity of bonds it's capable of expressing.

Such -is- life..indeed......?

I really don't understand your objection, and I did ask whether or not it would matter iof god played in the dirt or if it just happened to be stirred up. Is there a functional...chemical...difference between the two? No. If god stirring the soup is capable of making organic chemistry express itself as life...then -anything- which stirs the same soup is capable of doing the same thing for the same reasons. That;s why the "god" issue is irrelevant to life. Regardless of whether the batter was intentionally mixed or incidentally agitated, the result would be the same. That's how chemistry works - it doesn't matter who or what makes the mix.

[Thumpalumpacus]

For a social species, the ability to reach consensus can be more important to reproductive success in many cases than whether the consensus is correct.

Then why would anyone here who is an evolutionist, think it is a "bad" thing that so many people believe in God? Isn't it then a "good" thing from an evolutionary point of view?

Yet how often does theism produce consensus? Christians spent decades killing each other in Northern Ireland in part over whose conception of the Biblical god was more correct. The Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock fled persecution from other Christians in Europe, only to engage in persecuting other Christians once they arrived in America (to say nothing of the pagans they met!) Muslims kill Jews, Jews kill Muslims, Muslims kill Christians, Christians kill Muslims, Buddhists kill Muslims and vice-versa there too ... I'm left wondering when this consensus he referred to and you tried to claim kicks in.

Much like nationalism, theism strikes me as simply one more way to identify an outgroup, rather than seek inclusion.

For what it's worth, I'm not an "evolutionist". I am a rationalist. Evolution by natural selection seems the most rational way to explain the diversity of species (and by the way, does not explain the origin of life at all -- it only explains diversity of species). Abiogenesis is the term which addresses the various hypotheses seeking to explain the rise of life in naturalistic terms. While most evolutionary biologists accept abiogenesis as the most likely source of life, it is entirely possible for a religionist (such as myself when I was younger) to accept evolution as a tool for his deity of choice to work his ways in the world.

Even when I was a Christian I accepted evolution as a fact. The evidence that species evolve one into another is overwhelming, and we have observed it in nature. Where life came from is unknown. I myself regard special creation as much more unlikely than chemical scaffolding, in large part due to the fact that it has no reasonable basis so far as I can see.

---

Who cares? We're watching an argument between two folks who don't have the sense to understand that any utility in this argument has long been superseded by plugged ears and shouts of "lalalalala".

Exactly why should anyone entertain nonsense? They can, but I don't have the patience for it. R is defending crap and had been early in the thread trying to claim he was not trying to debate God only to recently admit he is a creationist. 

If others want to wade through his fantasy and allow him to pretend he has real science, they can. I like to cut to the chase. 

Nonsense is nonsense. Kinda like when Judge Judy's crap detector goes of and she is short and blunt and to the point.

Feel free to shoot spitballs all you want at a brick wall. Don't forget to use ALL-CAPS every so often to demonstrate how willing you are to discuss things rationally.

---

Sure he can.  Lots of gods invented by humanity have been ignored into non-existence.  Yhwh and his bastard kid are merely next on the list.

I wonder. Can you be ignored out of existence? I will try and we'll see.

"When you understand why you don't believe in Zeus, you'll understand why I don't believe in God."

---

As for me...I was just trying to get Brian to either admit that his statement: "Close proximity of individual atoms that by themselves are not a living thing, but because they bond like magnets exchanging electrons, that makes it very easy to go from non life to life." is unproven or to explain the mechanisms by which life comes from non-life easily.

It's much easier to understand once you see life as a process and not the end-result.

Of course Brian's claim -- mine as well, for that matter -- is yet unproven. It may never be proven.

I'm comfortable admitting ignorance, and I find that preferable to claiming knowledge I do not and perhaps cannot possess.

[Amarok]

Then why would anyone here who is an evolutionist, think it is a "bad" thing that so many people believe in God? Isn't it then a "good" thing from an evolutionary point of view?

Even if it were . What's good for evolution is not always good for us .

[Minimalist]

Zeus was much cooler than that uptight, sexually-repressed, probably gay jesus character.

[Cyberman]

For what it's worth, I'm not an "evolutionist". I am a rationalist.

Personally, I'm no more an evolutionist than I am a gravitationalist, or a thermodynamicist.

[Brian37]

For what it's worth, I'm not an "evolutionist". I am a rationalist.

Personally, I'm no more an evolutionist than I am a gravitationalist, or a thermodynamicist.

Accepting science does not need the suffix "ist" after it because it is not club or political ideology or a religion or economic view. Adding "ist" to those words would be like adding "ist" to make "gravityist".

[Succubus]

I have a syllogism for you.

1) If the atheists other than Brian who have participated in  this thread think that rjh4 is wrong on an argument, they will address rjh4's argument.

2) The atheists other than Brian who have participated in this thread have not addressed rjh4's argument that Brian is full of BS when he said: "Close proximity of individual atoms that by themselves are not a living thing, but because they bond like magnets exchanging electrons, that makes it very easy to go from non life to life."

3) Therefore, the atheists other than Brian who have participated in this thread think rjh4 is right in his argument that Brian is full of BS when he said: "Close proximity of individual atoms that by themselves are not a living thing, but because they bond like magnets exchanging electrons, that makes it very easy to go from non life to life."

What do you think?  Is it valid and sound?

You're referring to yourself in the third person?